The Cost of Living in America
A Political History of Economic Statistics, 1880–2000

Stapleford interweaves economic theory with political history to show why Americans vest so much authority in the Consumer Price Index.

Thomas A. Stapleford (Author)

9780521719247, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 August 2009

440 pages, 7 b/w illus. 7 tables
22.8 x 15.4 x 2.5 cm, 0.58 kg

'… I am fully convinced by this book and would recommend it strongly … it is an extremely informative book with much index theory and politics. It is very fascinating and extremely useful for everybody who is interested in price indices, inflation measurement, social policy and the general political problems of official statistics or, as Stapleford's put it, in 'the deep and complicated entanglement of rationalized governance, cost-of-living statistics, and economic reforms' … One might also add 'and in the constitution of official statistics in a democracy'.' Peter von der Lippe, Journal of Economics and Statistics

Since the late nineteenth century, the 'cost of living' has been a prominent part of debates about American political economy. By the early twentieth century, that prominence had taken a quantitative turn, as businessmen, unions, economists, and politicians all turned to cost-of-living statistics in their struggle to control and reshape the American economy. Today, the continuing power of these statistics is exemplified by the U.S Consumer Price Index, whose fluctuations have enormous consequences for economic policy and the federal budget (including the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars annually through cost-of-living escalator clauses in programs such as Social Security). In this book, Stapleford interweaves economic theory with political history to create a novel account of the quantitative knowledge that underpins much of American political economy. Demonstrating that statistical calculations inevitably require political judgments, he reveals what choices were made in constructing and using cost-of-living statistics and why those choices matter both for our understanding of American history and for contemporary political and economic life.

Introduction
Note on terminology and technical theory
Part I. Statistics and Labor Reform,1880–1930: 1. Before there were indexes: the 'labor question' and labor statistics, 1884–1910
2. The cost-of-living statistics and industrial relations in the 1920s
Part II. Rationalizing the Democratic Political Order, 1930–1960: 4. The nature of a revolution: the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the bottom-up: union research on the cost of living
7. Bounded conflict: collective bargaining and the consumer price index in the Cold War
Part III. The Consumer Price Index and the Federal Government, 1960–2000: 8. Accounting for growth: macroeconomics analysis and the transformation of price index theory
9. From workers to the welfare state: the consumer price index and the rise of indexation
Epilogue: governance and economic statistics
Technical index: a brief primer on cost-of-living indexes.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Political economy [KCP], Economics [KC]